The Newspaper Shop -- Monday edition

[walktalker]

*Yawn...*

One year later -- is Microsoft "Trustworthy"?
A year after Bill Gates called for Microsoft to make its products more "trustworthy," executives are touting myriad initiatives as proof of the software giant's new resolve. The company has spent millions to train staff in privacy concerns and secure programming, while building new tools and processes to help create reliable software. But critics -- and Microsoft's own executives -- said much more work remains. "A year after, the verdict is mixed," said Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer for managed-security company Counterpane Internet Security. "Some stuff, it's too early to tell; some stuff, they haven't gotten; and some, they've improved." That's an assessment Microsoft readily concedes.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-981015.html

Brains gather to outsmart spam
If experts here get their way, spam may soon be dead meat. Unsolicited e-mail messages, or spam, are on track to make up the majority of traffic on the Internet. But a group of researchers and developers gathered here Friday hopes to halt that by coming up with better ways of blocking those messages from consumers' in-boxes. The Spam Conference, held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was originally intended to be an informal gathering of 30 people or so. But more than 500 registered to discuss and debate the best way to battle the problem. "Spam-filtering is shooting at a target that is not just moving, it's taking evasive action," said Bill Yerazunis, a research scientist at the Mitsubishi Electronics Research Lab and the author of the CRM114 Discriminator, a spam filter.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-981177.html

Will tech titans derail Web services plans?
Disagreement over intellectual property issues could derail a new Web services standards effort. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) this week established a working group to define and establish rules for an area known as Web services choreography, which seeks to map out how Web services interact to form business transactions. Web services is an increasingly popular way to build and link business software. The W3C hopes that by establishing a standardized language for choreography, businesses will be able to more quickly build complex applications that involve interlinking several Web services. Without a common language for choreography, the world of Web services risks balkanization, the W3C warned.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-981059.html

Apple muzzles iTunes P2P plug-in
Apple Computer has forced a developer to stop distributing a plug-in that turned its iTunes music player into peer-to-peer music-sharing software. The plug-in, called iCommune, allowed iTunes users to browse the music libraries of other Macintoshes over a network and stream or download music from them. On Wednesday, Apple notified developer James Speth that he was violating the terms of his software agreement and ordered him to stop distributing the plug-in and to return Apple's development tools. Speth removed the iCommune download from his Web site. Apple's move comes amid increasing hostility between the entertainment industry and music-swapping applications such as Kazaa and the now-defunct Napster.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-981147.html

Book publisher tries out open source
Prentice Hall, a technical and academic book publisher, has embraced the open-source philosophy for a new series of books, the content of which may be freely distributed. Six books will be released this year with the Bruce Perens Open Source Series moniker, said Mark Taub, an editor-in-chief within Prentice Hall. The material of the books may be copied and updated under the strictures of the Open Publication License, and Prentice Hall will release electronic versions on the Web. "We sell a lot of books into the open-source community, so it's natural for us to want to contribute to the open-source community," Taub said.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-981018.html

Agency scouts for tech hotshots
Are you the Tom Cruise of tech stars? If so, Steven Pfrenzinger wants you on his team. The longtime consultant is building a tech staffing company based on the Hollywood talent model. Unlike traditional staffing firms, which match people to specific job openings, the Carrera Agency scouts hotshot tech jocks with the idea of developing a long-lasting relationship during a string of consulting jobs. After applicants are invited to participate in the plan, the company puts them through a series of tests, background checks and interviews. It turns away those who won't command top jobs. People who make the cut will get job placement, concierge services and opportunities for speaking engagements. Carrera's ideal candidates are experienced technologists who've worked independently and possess sophisticated technological skills.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-981121.html

It's a LinuxWorld, after all
Linux advocates will convene at a trade show in New York this week to promote their wares, tout customers, swap business cards and make their case that the operating system is growing up. The computing industry has become better adjusted to Linux and the collaborative, sharing, open-source philosophy that underlies the software. While the heart of Linux itself legally must be available for free, nearly every major computing company is trying to find ways to profit from it. Those methods will be on display Wednesday through Friday at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo as Linux customers are trotted out to illustrate that the operating system is for established companies, not just for the uber-techies that originally created Linux. Leading Linux seller Red Hat will share the stage with Morgan Stanley, HP will announce consumer products maker Unilever is buying its Linux servers, and oil company Amerada Hess is using Ximian's Red Carpet service for updating software.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-981287...g=fd_lede1_hed

And now, continuing our serie "How to NOT solve a global media sharing crisis:"
Microsoft unveils new CD copy protection
Microsoft announced on Saturday new digital rights software aimed at helping music labels control unauthorized copying of CDs, one of the biggest thorns in the ailing industry's side. Stung by the common practice of consumers copying, or "burning," new versions of a store-bought CD onto recordable CDs, music companies have invested heavily in copy-protection technologies that have mainly backfired or annoyed customers. For example, most copy-proof CDs are designed so that they cannot be played on a PC, but often this prevents playback on portable devices and car stereos too. Last year, some resourceful software enthusiasts cracked Sony Music's proprietary technology simply by scribbling around the edges of the disc with a Magic Marker pen, thus enabling playback on any device.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-981279.html?tag=fd_top

RIAA: ISPs should pay for music swapping
A top music industry representative said Saturday that telecommunications companies and Internet service providers will be asked to pay up for giving their customers access to free song-swapping sites. The music industry is in a tailspin with global sales of CDs expected to fall six percent in 2003, its fourth consecutive annual decline. A major culprit, industry watchers say, is online piracy. Now, the industry wants to hit the problem at its source -- Internet service providers (ISPs). "We will hold ISPs more accountable," said Hillary Rosen, chairman and CEO the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), in her keynote speech at the Midem music conference on the French Riviera. "Let's face it. They know there's a lot of demand for broadband simply because of the availability (of file-sharing)," Rosen said. As broadband access in homes has increased across the Western world, so has the activity on file-sharing services.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-981281.html?tag=fd_top

Canada blocks free Net TV
Canadian regulators ruled Friday that it is illegal to put broadcast TV signals onto the Internet without permission, dashing the hopes of entrepreneurs hoping to create new Net TV businesses. The long-awaited decision helped close what some had seen as a loophole in international copyright law, potentially allowing American and Canadian TV signals to be streamed online without the TV stations' or copyright holders' permission. However, regulators said they were wary of undermining traditional producers and distributors of TV content by allowing it to be distributed on the Net without regional restrictions. "At present, there is no completely workable method of ensuring that Internet retransmissions are geographically contained," the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission wrote in its decision. "The likelihood that a program retransmitted over the Internet would become available worldwide could significantly reduce the opportunities" for copyright owners.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-981254.html?tag=fd_top

Game server flaw poses attack threat
Multiplayer game servers that let players attack each other in virtual worlds could be the latest tool for online scofflaws to digitally attack other computers on the Internet, a security firm said Thursday. In an advisory posted to the company's Web site, security consultancy PivX Solutions stated that popular multiplayer games that have servers supporting the GameSpy network -- such as "Quake 3: Arena," "Unreal Tournament 2003" and "Battlefield 1942" -- could be used to magnify a denial-of-service attack, in some cases by as much as 400 times. "This attack will go right through a lot of firewalls right now," said Geoff Shively, chief technical officer for the Newport Beach, Calif.-based company. "A single server can theoretically produce enough data to flood a T-1 (connection, or 1.5 Mbps)." The flaw occurs because servers that include the GameSpy networking code automatically send responses to queries for status information and don't verify the sender's address.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-981255.html?tag=fd_top

Senators vow to halt 'data mining' project
Reflecting increased alarm about a Pentagon plan to find terrorists by trolling the electronic records of all Americans, several senators took steps Thursday to rein in the project and halt other "data mining'' efforts until Congress can review the implications on civil liberties. Sens. Dianne Feinstein, Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., drafted an amendment Thursday night to the $390 billion federal spending bill now being considered by Congress to temporary stop the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness project.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...al/4969039.htm

Pedal-powered e-mail in the jungle
Early next month, a villager in the mountainous jungles of northern Laos will climb onto a stationary bicycle hooked to a handmade, wireless computer and pedal his people into the digital age. It will be the first time a human-powered computer has ever linked a Third World village to the Internet by wireless remote. And the two Americans who will make this possible -- one a Navy veteran who became a leader in the Vietnam anti-war movement two generations ago, the other a founding pioneer of Silicon Valley -- plan to be at his side as he pedals. Long ago, when their hair was jet-black and the '60s were hot, these two graying Boomers -- Lee Thorn of San Francisco and Lee Felsenstein of Palo Alto -- were in the forefront of the raucous Berkeley left. Today, they still want to change the world.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...17/MN86676.DTL

IBM aims to get smart about AI
In the coming months, IBM will unveil technology that it believes will vastly improve the way computers access and use data by unifying the different schools of thought surrounding artificial intelligence. The Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA) is an XML-based data retrieval architecture under development at IBM. UIMA will greatly expand and enhance the retrieval techniques underlying databases, said Alfred Spector, vice president of services and software at IBM's Research division. UIMA "is something that becomes part of a database, or, more likely, something that databases access," he said. "You can sense things almost all the time. You can effect change in automated or human systems much more." Once incorporated into systems, UIMA could allow cars to obtain and display real-time data on traffic conditions and on average auto speeds on freeways, or it could let factories regulate their own fuel consumption and optimally schedule activities. Automated language translation and natural language processing also would become feasible.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-981256.html?tag=cd_mh

FCC: Open up TV waves to wireless
The Federal Communications Commission is quietly considering opening the television broadcast spectrum for use by other wireless devices, including Wi-Fi products. The proposal, revealed in a notice of inquiry adopted last month, would allow devices using unlicensed spectrum -- bandwidth not licensed to broadcasters -- to operate in the TV broadcast spectrum. However, they would tap into only those parts of the TV spectrum not being used and only be allowed to do this when they wouldn't interfere with authorized services. The Dec. 20 notice will take effect when it is published later this month in the Federal Register, said an FCC representative. At that point, the agency will kick off a 75-day comment period. The regulatory body is expecting a dogfight from TV broadcasters who in the past have been very protective of their territory -- opposition that could derail the proposed changes or delay them.
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-981047.html?tag=cd_mh

Senators add Wi-Fi to broadband debate
Two U.S. senators are proposing Wi-Fi networks as an alternative to digital subscriber lines and cable modems for getting broadband Internet access to rural areas and small cities. Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and George Allen, R-Va., on Tuesday proposed the Jumpstart Broadband Act, which would allocate additional radio spectrum for unlicensed use by wireless broadband devices. The two senators had been promoting the legislation as a means of bringing broadband access to the masses. The bill proposes the use of an additional 255MHz of contiguous spectrum in the 5GHz band. Wi-Fi, also known as 802.11b, is a technology that allows the creation of wireless networks with a radius of around 300 feet. The launching of broadband access has primarily been a two-horse race between DSL and cable modems.
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-980890.html?tag=cd_mh

Millions of short text messages lost
Millions of short text messages sent between mobile phones in the United States are lost every month, and the chance of two users connecting depends on which network they are on, according to a new study. In a study to be released Wednesday, Internet performance measurement company Keynote Systems says that 7.5 percent of all short text messages sent between wireless phones go missing. The increasingly popular service known as SMS (Short Message Service) lets mobile phone users send brief messages instantaneously. It typically costs 10 cents to send a message, and pennies to nothing to receive one.
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-980790.html?tag=cd_mh

Court: Network Associates can't gag users
In a victory for free-speech advocates and product reviewers, a New York state judge has ruled that Network Associates can't prevent people from talking about its products. New York state Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Shafer issued a ruling, made public this week, prohibiting the security software specialist from trying to use its end-user license agreements to ban product reviews or benchmark tests. The judge called the company's attempted ban "deceptive" because it implied consumers who conducted the reviews would be violating the law, when they would not. Shafer has not ruled on damages. The New York attorney general's office began investigating the case after Network World Fusion magazine published an unfavorable review of the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company's "Gauntlet" firewall software in 1999.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-981228.html?tag=cd_mh

Windows Media 9 gets Sundance showing
Microsoft plans to screen four independent movies at the Sundance Film Festival with its Windows Media 9 Series software, as part of the company's ongoing efforts to warm Hollywood to its technology. The software giant's media playback technology will be used with four films, "Masked and Anonymous," "The Maldonado Miracle," "A Foreign Affair," and "Milk and Honey." Sundance, which began Thursday and runs through Jan. 26 in Park City, Utah, will also use Windows Media 9 to deliver short films on its Web site. Microsoft has been wooing Hollywood for years in hopes that the industry will adopt its multimedia playback technology when offering their films on PCs. The company unveiled Windows Media 9 in September at a star-studded presentation featuring "Titanic" director James Cameron, Beatles producer Sir George Martin and musician LL Cool J.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-981130.html?tag=cd_mh

Military worried about Web leaks
The U.S. Defense Department is worried that sensitive information remains exposed on its Web sites. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned in a directive sent to military units this week that too much unclassified but worrisome material was popping up on the Web, and said Al Qaeda and other foes were sure to take advantage of it. The directive, drafted as the U.S. is readying troops for a possible attack on Iraq, reminded military Webmasters they must adhere to the department's 1998 policies and procedures. Rumsfeld's order further restricts what information will be publicly available on military sites, effectively tightening controls that have been in place for at least five years and that became far more strict after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-981057.html?tag=cd_mh

Hidden ad-skipping feature found in TiVo
A hidden feature on remote controls for TiVo digital video recorders lets viewers skip ads more easily. The "Easter egg" -- industry jargon for a feature that is revealed when an unlikely series of keystrokes is entered -- allows subscribers to make 30 second jumps in recorded programming. The special sequence of key commands is being promoted on TiVo enthusiast Web sites, such as TiVo Community Forum. The pattern consists of pressing the following buttons in sequence: Select, Play, Select, 3, 0, Select. Entering the same pattern again also deactivates the capability. The recorder "bings" three times to acknowledge the activation of the feature. Pressing the advance key on the remote control skips 30 seconds of recorded television programming.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-980829.html?tag=cd_mh

[walktalker]

Only Online: Murder Trial Details
Concerns that news reports might taint the jury in the trial of an alleged serial killer have led a Canadian judge to admonish Internet and foreign journalists, calling on them to comply with a ban on publishing certain details revealed in court. As a result, online coverage late last week of the high-profile trial of Robert Pickton, a Vancouver-area pig farmer accused of murdering numerous prostitutes, was mostly limited to reporting British Columbia Provincial Court Judge David Stone's stern warning to three foreign reporters: Honor the publication ban or risk being barred from the courtroom. But that doesn't mean the non-Canadian journalists will comply. Editors at The Seattle Times are taking a wait-and-see approach. "We're going to evaluate this as we have to on a daily basis," said Lucy Mohl, senior news producer for Seattletimes.com.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,57272,00.html

Tech Predictions for the Decade
How will technology change our lives in the next 10 years? If scientists and analysts at the market research firm IDC are proven right, paraplegics will be able to walk thanks to sensors embedded in their legs that will receive directions from a computer. Doctors will monitor a person's vital signs through a computer that is connected to tiny sensors implanted inside the body. Buildings made of "nanotubes," or carbon particles that are a thousand times stronger than steel, will withstand virtually any natural disaster. And the Web will be intelligent enough to give users exactly what they are looking for: no more scouring hundreds of pages on Google. These are but a few of the predictions made by IDC last week about the technologies of the future, said John Gantz, chief research officer for IDC.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,57238,00.html

DMCA: Ma Bell Would Be Proud
Get out your wallet. Big business has found another way to tighten the screws on customers, in league with its new partner: the notorious Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Just as naysayers predicted when it was enacted, the DMCA's anticompetitive impact is reverberating widely beyond the entertainment and software industries, with potentially devastating effects on consumers. Not so many decades ago, you couldn't buy or legitimately connect your own phone or other telecom equipment to the public telephone network in the United States, except in some cases if you were the government or a newspaper wire service. Virtually everything related to telephone communications had to be leased from the local monopoly phone company, which also performed all installations and maintenance.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,57268,00.html

China Awaits High-Speed 'Maglev'
Shanghai, China's largest city, is gearing up to launch the world's first commercial maglev train, which uses electromagnetic levitation to carry passengers as speeds of up to 430 kmh. The 30-km (18-mile) maglev line, built using German technology from Transrapid International at a cost of more than $1.2 billion, is launching sometime in summer 2003. It enables passengers to travel from Shanghai's financial district to its international airport in about eight minutes. The same journey by car typically takes between 45 minutes to one hour. The high speeds of the maglev, or magnetic levitation, trains are possible because there is no friction between the track and the train's wheel. The train glides about 10 millimeters above a single track called a guideway, propelled and held in position by powerful magnets.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,57163,00.html

No Harmony Yet in Content Land
It was a warm and fuzzy occasion by Washington standards, but the deal reached between music and tech groups last week may only signal more turmoil in the coming months as old and new rifts surface. Last week, the Recording Industry Association of America, the Business Software Alliance and the Computer Systems Policy Project agreed to jointly oppose digital copy-protection mandates from Congress, devise voluntary copy-protection schemes and educate consumers on piracy. It was a strange triad, considering the mud slung between the music and tech camps in recent years over file sharing and peer-to-peer networks. The BSA and CSPP represent major players such as Microsoft, Intel and Dell. Both sides lose quite a bit of control over their products if Congress enacts strict copy-protection mandates. Hardware makers would have to relinquish control over development and content companies would lose control over distribution.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,57267,00.html

Scientists Giddy About the Grid
One pesky word has doomed many collaborative supercomputer projects to the purgatory of the suggestion box: feasible. Sure, universities could conceivably link their most powerful machines. But just like back in the kindergarten sandbox, differing standards prevented everyone from playing well with others. Now, the advent of grid computing is teaching scientists how to share, and financial incentives from the government are helping to smooth over differences. "The assumption is that people will buy into this and we'll be one unified community," said Dan Abrams, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who is working on a $10 million federal project to connect the nation's earthquake study centers.
http://www.wired.com/news/infostruct...,57265,00.html

Segway Hits City Roadblock
Known for its love of geek chic as well as its congested streets, San Francisco might have been expected to embrace a new, environmentally friendly personal vehicle that promises to pull people out of their smog-spewing cars. Instead, the city on Monday becomes the first large municipality to outlaw the Segway Human Transporter on its sidewalks more than a month before the chariot-like vehicles are made available to the public. The Board of Supervisors acted last month following intense lobbying by Segway in state capitols to change laws to permit the two-wheeled vehicles on sidewalks. In all, 33 states, including California, approved Segway-enabling legislation. But that doesn't mean major cities will roundly embrace the scooters touted by their inventor, Dean Kamen, as apt to "change civilization" when he introduced them to great fanfare in December 2001.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,57292,00.html

After the copyright smackdown: What next?
When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Congress was within its constitutional bounds to extend the duration of all copyrights by 20 years -- up to 70 years beyond the life of the author and potentially infinitely -- many saw the ruling as a knockout blow to the movement to reform copyright. Some on the public interest side are tempted to lament what could be called the "Dred Scott case for culture," unjustifiably locking up content that deserves to be free. After all, six of the nine justices concurred with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg when she issued a stark opinion that cavalierly dismissed the historical "bargain" that justified American copyright in the first place: We the People agree to grant a limited, temporary monopoly to a creator or publisher in exchange for access to creativity and the eventual return of the work to a state of freedom.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/20...ght/index.html

Dipstick gives rapid plague diagnosis
A new dipstick test for bubonic and pneumonic plague will help dramatically reduce the number of cases in countries still blighted by the diseases. Bubonic plague is highly contagious and spreads rapidly into epidemics. It is almost eradicated in the developed world, but there at least 4000 confirmed cases every year in more than 20 countries, mainly in Africa. This number is likely to be a vast under estimation, says Suzanne Chanteau at the Pasteur Institute and Ministry of Health in Madagascar, who developed the test. About 20 per cent of people with the disease die, she says, despite the disease being easily treatable with streptomycin, a cheap and effective antibiotic. However, early detection is crucial. Pneumonic plague is always fatal unless treated within 24 hours.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993279

Volcanoes: All hot and bothered
One in ten of the world's people live in the shadow of active volcanoes. Vesuvius overlooks Naples, Rainier towers over Seattle-Tacoma and, most ominously of all, Popocatépetl looms above Mexico City, perhaps the world's largest megalopolis. The residents of these cities, and others like them, are sitting, in effect, on ticking time-bombs. In the past few months, the residents of Catania, Sicily's second-largest city, located near the volcano Etna, have found that living atop a lava stream and under a shower of ash is not pleasant. Etna began its most recent eruption at the end of October. And though the intermittent ash and steady lava flow have not been good for business — over 30 people were injured at a tourist complex just before Christmas — they have been a boon to those seeking to understand volcanic eruptions.
http://www.economist.com/science/dis...ory_id=1534663

NASA boosts nuclear propulsion plans
NASA has requested a "very significant" increase in funding for the development of nuclear propulsion systems for spacecraft, according to Sean O'Keefe, the administration's chief. Existing chemical rocket technologies have restricted missions to the same speed for 40 years, he said. "With the new technology, where we go next will only be limited by our imagination." O'Keefe revealed the significant new emphasis in an interview with Los Angeles Times: "We're talking about doing something on a very aggressive schedule to not only develop the capabilities for nuclear propulsion and power generation, but to have a mission using the new technology within this decade." The request has been approved by US President George Bush and will now pass to Congress for approval. NASA's Nuclear Systems Initiative will also be renamed Project Prometheus.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993285

Recipes for bioterror: censoring science
Several months before 11 September, Australian scientists published a paper describing how they had unintentionally created a "supervirus" that, instead of sterilising mice as intended, killed every last one. Could this information help someone to create a human supervirus in the same way? And in 2002 American researchers described how they had made a polio virus from scratch by mail-ordering bits of DNA. The method could be used to build far more deadly viruses. These papers are now at the heart of a fierce debate. Are such articles more of a gift to would-be bioterrorists than to civilised science? If so, should they be published at all? The US has already introduced a barrage of legislation, such as the USA Patriot Act, to restrict access to dangerous pathogens and determine who is allowed to work with them. There are also moves to limit access to unclassified but sensitive information. But what constitutes "sensitive" is the greyest of areas.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993266

Chemistry guides evolution, claims theory
That enduring metaphor for the randomness of evolution, a blind watchmaker that works to no pattern or design, is being challenged by two European chemists. They say that the watchmaker may have been blind, but was guided and constrained by the changing chemistry of the environment, with many inevitable results. The metaphor of the blind watchmaker has been famously championed by Richard Dawkins of the University of Oxford. But Robert Williams, also at Oxford, and Joäo José R. Fraústo da Silva of the Technical University of Lisbon in Portugal say that evolution is not strictly random. They claim Earth's chemistry has forced life to evolve along a predictable progression from single-celled organisms to plants and animals.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993267

Shawn Fanning to appear with Kevin Mitnick on TechTV
One of the world's most famous computer hackers gets off probation this week and plans to dive back into the Internet, his former playground where breaking-and-entering landed him in jail for five years. On Tuesday, 39-year-old Kevin Mitnick will log on to the Internet for the first time in eight years, during the live TechTV show "Screen Savers." Also scheduled to be on the program are Shawn Fanning, creator of Internet music downloading pioneer Napster, and Steve Wozniak, a co-founder of Apple Computer Inc. Mitnick says he is ready to go to work, ironically, in a position where he will be helping protect companies against the kind of hacking he used to do. He has a job interview scheduled for Monday, but declines to name the company.
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/article.../01192003f.php

Welcome to .NET - how MS plans to dominate digital music sales
Once upon a time Microsoft discovered the Internet, and the browser wars ensued. More recently it's become apparent that the company sees music sales as the Next Big Thing, but so far, the extent, intricacy and all-encompassing nature of its plans for Digital Rights Management and secure content distribution haven't been widely grasped. When they are, the browser wars may look like a sideshow. Essentially, there are three major components to the plan. First, the ubiquitous platform - Windows Media Player is reprising Internet Explorer as an integrated part of the OS, so it will become the client of choice manque, and the associated technologies will become the standard technologies. Second, there's the music business. Presented with a near-universal (one might muse that Apple can expect another visit on the subject of MS Office shortly) platform and associated protection mechanisms, the record companies can surely be induced to adopt it. Especially if they still can't figure out an alternative mechanism for stopping their revenues escaping via the Net.
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/article.../01192003g.php

Music piracy 'great', says Robbie
Singer Robbie Williams has said he believes music piracy is a "great" idea. He made the comment at a music trade fair in Cannes, predicting it would anger his record company EMI. Williams said he had investigated the issue of music piracy before renegotiating his new recording contract last year. He said: "I think it's great, really I do. "There is nothing anyone can do about it. "I am sure my record label would hate me saying it, and my manager and my accountants." The record industry estimates that it loses millions of pounds each year thanks to the public downloading tracks free from the internet.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...ic/2673983.stm

More news later on

[walktalker]

Security blame game
Though much of the finger-pointing for software vulnerabilities falls on hackers, virus writers and software developers, it may be time to take a closer look at how the PC user also contributes. A treasure trove of personal and corporate information was uncovered on used disk drives by two Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate students. The pair bought 158 disk drives for less than $1,000 on the Web and at swap meets. On those drives, they found more than 5,000 credit card numbers, medical reports, detailed personal and corporate financial information, and several gigabytes worth of personal e-mail and pornography. The students found that 129 of the 158 drives they acquired were still functional. Of these, they found 28 drives in which little or no attempt was made to erase the information. On one drive, the pair found a year’s worth of financial transactions. The drive apparently came from an ATM in Illinois.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-981076.html

Microsoft reveals source code to Russia
Russia has become the first country to get its hands on one of the world's most closely guarded corporate secrets -- Microsoft's blueprint for its Windows operating system, the software giant said Monday. The U.S. software giant announced last week it would reveal its source code to governments to help them protect state software used for tracking personal data, taxes and ensuring national security. "Russia is the first country to sign such an agreement with us, but it will not be the only one," said Olga Dergunova, managing director of Microsoft's Moscow office. Signing on to Microsoft's Government Security Program will allow Russia, and any other signatory, to weave its own technology into Microsoft's Windows platform and adapt Windows to its needs and test its ability to fend off hackers. With this move, Microsoft aims to strengthen its position in government markets, where it faces growing competitive pressure from free open-source software.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-981298.html?tag=fd_top

Net music giveaway plays encore
Major music and technology companies on Monday announced the return of a promotion they tried six months ago that involved the giving away music to attract customers to their nascent Internet music businesses. In an effort to curtail the global outbreak of online piracy, a phenomenon that is chipping into CD sales, the major music labels have launched their own subscription services in the United States and partnered with third parties in America and Europe, including the United Kingdom's OD2. But the industry-backed services, many less than one year old, have had little impact swaying Internet users to abandon free download sites such as Kazaa and Grokster. Despite pending law suits, the free sites continue to operate, serving tens of millions of music fans who trade millions of tracks daily.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-981296.html?tag=fd_top

'DVD Jon' Acquittal Under Appeal
Norwegian prosecutors will appeal the acquittal of a Norwegian teenager charged with digital burglary for creating and circulating a program online that cracks the security codes on DVDs. Rune Floisbonn, a prosecutor with Norway's economic crimes police, told the NTB news agency Monday that an appeal would be filed. He did not immediately return calls from The Associated Press. Jon Lech Johansen, 19, was found innocent of violating Norway's data break-in laws Jan. 7, in a ruling that gave prosecutors two weeks to decide whether to appeal the high profile case. That deadline expires Tuesday.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,57301,00.html

How to Foil Data Thieves, Hackers
A suspected crooked insider at a New York software company sells consumer credit reports to identity thieves, at roughly $30 a pop, in a high-tech scam that prosecutors say victimizes thousands. An unemployed British computer administrator fights extradition to face federal charges in Virginia and New Jersey that he hacked into 92 separate U.S. military and government networks, often getting past easy-to-guess passwords to download sensitive data. These and other recent data intrusions, whose authors are typically intent on theft, sabotage or cyberterrorism, have given rise to a promising profiling-and-reasoning strategy aimed at preventing online break-ins as they happen. Just as authorities use profiling to guard against criminals at ports and borders, researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalo are developing software that can generate highly personalized profiles of network users by analyzing the sequences of commands entered at each computer terminal.
http://www.wired.com/news/infostruct...,57302,00.html

Techies and the RIAA: A Telling Truce?
Last week was a big one in tech land -- a slew of almost unanimously positive earnings reports were released, Microsoft announced its first-ever dividend, and AOL Time Warner chairman Steve Case resigned. But one curious event that was buried under the avalanche of other technology news warrants some further attention: an announcement regarding a new "truce" between the Recording Industry Association of America and various tech industry lobbying organizations. The agreement puts an end to the RIAA's attempts to have government-mandated copyright protection embedded in products sold by technology companies. In return, the tech companies -- big names such as Adobe, Apple Computer, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft, represented under the aegis of the Business Software Alliance and the Computer Systems Policy Project -- have agreed to work with the RIAA to craft an industry-based solution to the piracy problem.
http://www.business2.com/articles/we...,46561,00.html

More news later on

[JackSpratts]

wow wt, a bumper crop!

radium rockets, segway sidewalks and online murder caught my eye.

- js.

[TankGirl]

OMG this was a huge issue! You will soon need a separate headline news section...

Thanks a lot, WT sweetie!

- tg